By Jennifer Ronnenberg
Water Management Coordinator
A partnership opportunity between the Fillmore SWCD, Fillmore County, the Conservation Corps of MN, and the Fillmore County Sentence to Serve crew gave some local storm water structures a much needed facelift. Two existing water retention basins at the Fillmore County Office Building in Preston were renovated in November 2016 into rain gardens to provide more function and beauty to the neighborhood and less maintenance for County staff.
The original structures collected storm water from the building and back parking lot for temporary storage and slower release, but ended up having more problems than expected. The basins themselves were seen as a public hazard, one of them with a vertical drop of several feet. The water from the basins flowed through too quickly and out of discharge pipes on the other side of the road, creating large volumes of erosive water for the downstream neighborhood. The bottom of the basins grew standard turf grass, which could not filter or infiltrate water quickly enough and required regular mowing; a task difficult in the vertical basin. The renovations involved transforming them from simple retention basins into infiltrating and filtering rain gardens.
Enter the Conservation Corps, a five-person crew based out of Rochester called the “Aspens.” The Conservation Corps provides hands-on environmental stewardship and service-learning opportunities to youth and young adults from diverse backgrounds while accomplishing conservation, natural resource management and emergency response work. The work was all done by hand due to the location and confinement of the existing structures. The Aspen Crew, assisted by staff of the county, Sentence to Serve, and the Fillmore SWCD began by removing the grass, followed with a tiller that loosened and aerated the soil underneath. After that came several layers of a mulch-sand-dirt mixture that provides a good planting bed and filters particulates out of the water as it flows through. A mulch-only layer topped what is now a highly functioning retention basin, and low-maintenance shrub plantings complete the project.
“The Conservation Corps crew members worked hard, were enthusiastic about the project, and maintained their professionalism throughout,” said Jennifer Ronnenberg, Water Management Coordinator at the Fillmore SWCD. “Everything looks great, and we have already received many comments of praise from the community. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew.”
The Conservation Corps crew felt the love, too. “It was really gratifying to transform an ugly, broken system into something beautiful that helps the environment, helps the river and helps the town,” said crew leader Billy Ritzenthaler. “And it’s really cool to give kids an opportunity to do something they can be proud of.”
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